Trust Between Ad Tech and Marketers Is the Biggest Challenge in Digital Advertising Today

Index Exchange’s Andrew Casale talks programmatic trends

COLOGNE, GERMANY—After years of relying on programmatic pipes and technology to handle digital advertising, complexities and growing concerns about ads appearing alongside controversial content means ad-tech companies need to form trust with marketers.

“The biggest single issue is trust, trust across the supply chain,” said Andrew Casale, president and CEO of Index Exchange. “People want to understand what’s happening with each transaction—Where are the taxes? Where does the dollar go?—and they want to know that they can trust programmatic.”

Casale specifically mentioned the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s ads.txt program, which provides publishers with a file they can drop into their website to stop unauthorized ad-tech companies from selling ads.

Asked what it will take to clean up digital media-supply chains from ad-tech companies, Casale said, “Everyone needs to listen, and then they have to comply. People like Marc Pritchard at P&G want to see a better ecosystem, but they want to see their issues addressed.”